Harvey flood victims hope special wristbands will help...

1of 3Baylor College of Medicine clinical research manager Georgina Armstrong, second from left, and associate director for cancer prevention and population science Melissa Bondy, right, explain their Hurricane Harvey environmental health study to participants and Baylor employees Sara Kruger, second from right, and Debra Townley, left, as they put on special wristbands at the Baylor College of Medicine Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2017 in Houston. The study uses biological samples and wristbands to determine what chemicals participants are coming into contact with in the wake of the hurricane.Photo: Michael Ciaglo, Houston Chronicle

2of 3Baylor College of Medicine associate director for cancer prevention and population science Melissa Bondy and Dr. Cheryl Walker are using biological samples and special wristbands to determine what chemicals participants are coming into contact with in the wake of Hurricane Harvey for their Hurricane Harvey environmental health study Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2017 in Houston.Photo: Michael Ciaglo, Houston Chronicle

3of 3Baylor College of Medicine clinical research manager Georgina Armstrong, left, and associate director for cancer prevention and population science Melissa Bondy, right, explain their Hurricane Harvey environmental health study to participant and Baylor College of Medicine events associate Sara Kruger, center, at the Baylor College of Medicine Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2017 in Houston. The study uses biological samples and special wristbands to determine what chemicals participants are coming into contact with in the wake of the hurricane.Photo: Michael Ciaglo, Houston Chronicle

Ever since Hurricane Harvey filled Debra Townley's home near Meyerland with 16 inches of water — taking 30 years of memories with it — she's noticed a change in her health.

Her voice has gone hoarse and gravely. She's tired and sore. Her husband has seemed down, even more than you'd expect for someone who's just lost everything to one of the worst storms in U.S. history.

They're both going to the doctor Friday, she said, but she's still worried about what she was exposed to — and the long term effects — when the swampy, bacteria-loaded water filled her home last month.

So Tuesday, the 63-year-old enrolled at Baylor College of Medicine in a study that will track the chemicals she comes in contact with as she begins the arduous process of rebuilding her life.

All it takes is a rubber bracelet around her wrist and seven days of going about her business.

"It's better to know than not," said Townley, a research coordinator at the college. "That was not clean water coming into my house."

Townley is one of about 150 Texas residents who have enrolled so far in a study aimed at cataloging the amount of chemicals they are exposed to — and the potential health impacts — as a result of contamination related to Harvey, be it from the 13 Superfund sites in and near Houston, the oil and gas refineries or the millions of gallons of sewage that leaked from wastewater treatment plants.

The silicone bracelets, which look like the Livestrong bracelets worn by many in the early 2000s, were developed at Oregon State University about five years ago to mimic the absorption process of a human cell. The wristbands' porous material can trap more than 1,500 organic chemicals, such as pesticides, benzene and flame retardants, that it and its wearer come in contact with, said Kim Anderson, an environmental chemist in OSU's College of Agricultural Sciences.

"It's almost like a sponge," Anderson said.

Oregon State officials reached out to Baylor College of Medicine after Harvey made landfall last month, with the idea of having residents wear the bracelets in the aftermath of Harvey.

Baylor jumped at the opportunity, providing an undisclosed amount of funds to start the process, said Cheryl Lyn Walker, director for Baylor College of Medicine's Center for Precision Environmental Health. Officials with UTHealth-School of Public Health and Texas A&M University also are collaborating on the project.

Researchers hope to get about $1 million in federal grant money as the study goes on, but Walker said they currently can afford to hand out only about 200 bracelets.

They began that process last week, going to areas including Baytown, east Houston, the Highlands Community and the Addicks reservoir communities, Walker said. Baylor College of Medicine employees and students, including Townley, also signed up on campus early this week.

Each resident who received a bracelet was asked to fill out a health questionnaire, submit to a nasal swab and spit sample, as well as provide a fecal sample. At the end of the seven days, participants bring their bracelet back to Baylor and officials will send them to Oregon State for analysis.

Oregon State then will provide a customized report to each participant, according to an OSU news release, as well as aggregate the findings for the overall study.

Dependent on federal funding, Walker said officials plan to stay in contact with the participants over the next six to 12 months in order to track any health changes they may experience.

This will be helpful, she said, because researchers don't know for sure the effects of that kind of exposure.

Researchers think that "the closer you are to a flooded site with hazardous chemicals, you are more at risk," Walker said. "The reason this is so valuable is because we don't know that that's what is actually occurring. So we're going to find out."

Scientists likely will get a lot of data from Townley, who currently is camping in her backyard. Her home is uninhabitable, she said, and the family lost nearly everything, with exception of their trucks.

She expects to be camping for the next six months as they rebuild, she said.

"Anything that can be restored, we're restoring," she said. "But a lot of things you just have to let go."

Alex Stuckey is the NASA, science and environment reporter for the Chronicle. Stuckey won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for her work on a project examining the rampant mishandling of sexual assault reports at Utah colleges while working for The Salt Lake Tribune. She is an Investigative Reporters and Editors award winner and a Livingston Award Finalist. An Ohio native, Stuckey has lived in five states since graduating from Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism in 2012. She is an avid runner, bookworm and lover of elephants. She likes puppies more than people.